- The North Carolina Supreme Court will decide whether Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools must devote money to supplementing the retirement pay for campus police.
- A unanimous state Court of Appeals panel ruled in favor of the police and against CMS in 2024. The school system urges the state's highest court to reverse that decision.
- The school system's lawyer argued Tuesday that a state law mandating a 5% employer contribution to law enforcement retirement pay doesn't cover school districts.
North Carolina’s highest court will decide in the months ahead whether the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system must spend more money to boost retirement pay for campus police. The court listened Tuesday to nearly an hour of oral arguments on the issue.
A unanimous state Court of Appeals panel ruled in February 2024 that the school system must make a 5% contribution for its campus police to a state Supplemental Retirement Income Plan. Charlotte-Mecklenburg school lawyers urge the North Carolina Supreme Court to reverse that decision.
“The plaintiffs are asking this court to step into the shoes of the General Assembly,” argued Terry Wallace, the lawyer representing Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
Legislators did not include school-employed law enforcement officers in the state law that set up the 5% contribution plan, Wallace said. The plan was meant for law enforcement officers in cities and counties. Those local governments have sales tax revenue available to fund the extra retirement pay.
“I can’t disagree with the policy rationale” of providing benefits, Wallace said. “Policy is up to the General Assembly. If they want to include these officers in this legislation, they can do it with the stroke of a pen.”
On the other side of the argument, the campus police’s lawyer noted that the law in question applies to officers working for a “political subdivision of the State.” Court precedents have considered school districts to fall within that category.
“I want you to think about what is happening in our schools — school shootings, school knifings, school riots,” argued John Gresham. “Their job as law enforcement officers — that carries the same dangers. It’s our position that to have these police officers getting this benefit is essentially a way of recognizing that they are subject to the same issues as all law enforcement officers.”
The 5% contribution requirement covers all other similar police in North Carolina, Gresham said. “The only law enforcement officers in the state that aren’t are the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers.”
“Why would the legislature want to distinguish or exclude members of the CMS campus police?” Justice Trey Allen asked Wallace.
“I think it’s a matter of did they want to include them,” Wallace responded. “I think if they wanted to include them, they would have specifically written it into the statute.”
“if the statute defines employer to include ‘other political subdivision’ and it defines ‘officer’ as just a law enforcement officer, … why would they need to further amend it to say, ‘And, of course, we mean school boards?’” Justice Anita Earls asked.
“I don’t think they do,” Gresham responded.
The General Assembly approved a state law in 2009 allowing CMS to form its campus police force. Lawmakers did not rewrite the existing law covering the 5% retirement contribution, Wallace said.
Justice Richard Dietz suggested the court might find “ambiguity” in the law. In resolving the case, justices could say “we can’t find a reason why the General Assembly would not want these officers to get the benefits that every other law enforcement officer [gets].”
“If we think it’s ambiguous, why wouldn’t we do that — try to look at what the spirit of the law likely was?” Dietz asked.
Allen focused on the “political subdivision” language lawmakers included in the law. “Don’t we have to assume they know that our decisions say that school districts are political subdivisions of the state?” he asked. “Therefore, if they didn’t want them to be included, … they either would have not included this language, or they would have expressly excluded school districts.”
“If you go to the plain language, employer [includes] ‘other political subdivision of the state.’ [That] sounds like school districts to me,” Chief Justice Paul Newby said.
The argument also turned to practical concerns.
“How would CMS comply?” Allen asked.
“That’s a great question,” Wallace responded. “We’re kind of scratching our heads because we haven’t figured that out yet.”